The Gathering Dark
by Maywynn
Summary: "He is the disgraced captain, forced to nurse-maid a defector. The whistle-blower, himself, meanwhile, has other things planned." Sparks will fly. Not just metaphorical ones. AU. Read at one's own risk of being confused. There may just be slash.
1. Part I: Game On

**Part I – Game On**

A cold cup of tea. That is the first memory that strikes me, from that day. Then the others line up behind it. Slow and fast. Painful and painless. Bitter and sugar-sweet. All in order now. _Alles in Ordnung_. Everything ready. The information in my pocket. Burning. Burning.

I was just finishing a night shift. Sitting there. Seemingly thinking of military manoeuvres. Then, getting up, calmly, and going over to the wall, fumbling, but not fumbling, with the great lines of cabling there. A flash of a silver pen knife. Then, nothing. The camera in the corner will see no more.

Clothes changed. Quick. Quick. From military intelligence officer to pilot. Uniform shoved under the desk. Information transferred to the new pocket of the other uniform.

Retrieve the _other_ information stick from where it has been stuck behind the terminal, and plug it in.

Enter the codes needed. Key password: Mjölnir. Hit Enter. Virus is up and running. Result.

Check the information. Safe, still safe. My passport_. Mon passeport_. My survival.

I go to the door. About to turn out the light. Turn; final checks. The tea. Sitting on the edge of the desk. Stone cold now, milk with no sugar. The way Crieff liked it. Not me. But I drink it all, barely any flavour. Something in it makes every single nerve tingle. What? The caffeine? Not likely. But still. Every. Single. Nerve. I have always broken the rules. But not like this. This is _fun_. And life threatening, and fraught with danger, but mainly fun.

I turn out the light and hurry down the corridor.

Game on.

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

_This is a new AU I have started, all properly plotted and planned (kind of) – cause the thing is, you see, my good friend Buffstar said that I should have planned, kind of. So I did plan (kind of). _

_Other than that, sorry about __**John, Prozac and I**__, it was good whilst it lasted. No comment on why it was deleted. _

Alles in Ordnung._ – means "All in order" in German._

Mon passeport – _means "My passport" in French._

_Surely, I hear you saying, if it's an AU, then these countries won't exist. Well, they do now. _

_ANYBODY who speaks any foreign language at all, can they please contact me! I want to use lots of different languages in here. My extent of knowledge is limited to GCSE German (plus my mom speaks Russian, that's it). I will cite you. _

_All will be revealed..._


	2. Part II: Knife Edge

**Part II – Knife Edge**

My memories are a bit like my army photo. The one they took when I signed up. Old, worn, a bit faded, but well known (to me). I smiled for that photo. Not anymore.

To be fair, it was all going down-hill anyway. The last straw was when Stamford was blown up. Sky high too. He was the best soldier out of our patrol, he should have been captain too, except he wasn't a good marksman and I was. And then, I was knee-deep in sh*t about his death. Why he died. How he died. There were rumours of a military tribunal. _Dereliction of duty_, they whispered. _Court martial. Not sentenced to death, but hung out to dry. Stripping of your rank. Your next job will be teaching newbies which end of gun to point at people. Either that of you will be stitching up men who were luckier than Mike_. Everybody knew.

And all while the rumours circulated, I went around checking on the injured. Stuck back at base. For want of a better word, I was grounded. My patrol still went off on ops; I just wasn't allowed to join them.

For two months they balanced me on a knife edge. Suspended in space. It took less than that time for my (former) patrol to blown up with three times the explosives it took to kill Stamford. If I'd been there, I would have been dead too. But there was no point thinking like that, not here. Here, you were given a certain amount of time to grieve for people – usually a day – and then you had to go back to normal. To move on quickly, just like that.

I cannot remember grieving for them, for Stamford, Patterson, Phillimore, Davenport and the others. There was a poem I used to like, it said something like, "_From perfect grief there need not be/Wisdom or even memory_". Something like that.

The, what after that? Court-martial? Being stripped of rank? Well, that was what I was wondering, until _it_ happened. And then I was well known for all the wrong reasons. Again.

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

_A court-martial is a military court, traditionally used to discipline soldiers at times of war (according to Wiki). _

_The poem quoted is _"The Woodspurge"_ by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. _

_Feel free to correct me on my usage of military terminology._

_With thanks to FeelingCrossToday – my only reviewer. Updates will not be this quick, I just happened to be able to steal the PC for a long amount of time. _


	3. Part III: Silence

**Part III – Silence**

"This is Golf Echo Romeo Tango India, requesting permission to take off, over."

"This is air traffic control, please state mission parameters, over."

"This is Golf Echo Romeo Tango India to air traffic control. Classified mission number Ninner Golf Romeo Romeo X-Ray. It has high level clearance, over."

There was a rustle of papers as the controller looked up the mission I had made up just over an our ago.

"You are cleared, over."

"Thank you (_merci_), over and out."

_Fast forward..._

It took them twenty minutes to realise that I was a thief and a fraud. Tuh-wen-tee minutes – pathetic! However, they could be given some redeeming credit for the fact that all of their surface-to-air missiles had decided to simultaneously malfunction: they may have been slightly pre-occupied.

"This is air traffic control to Golf Echo Romeo Tango India, please state intended destination, over."

"This is a high level security clearance mission. Permission denied."

"Please state your name and rank."

All pretence of acting 'nice' was gone, no more 'over's' and so on. Now I could sense some semblance of danger. Good. That was the last clear thing I remember. The sharp thrill of danger, a bit like cold tea. Time condenses around that point, and then stretches out, as long as eternity and as lazy as a cat – _tempus fugit_ – I remember dipping low over the lake, the ack-ack-ack of machine guns, then: nothing.

Silence is the loudest thing of all, because there are no words to say what it means.

Did you know that ambient sound is what makes people feel safe and normal? A lack of ambient sound unnerves the average person.

I like silence.

I will return to the story. I will, but not now.

Now, it is silent.

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

_This is all Sky's fault. Because of her lovely reviews (not forgetting FeelingCrossToday and booda77), I decided to post another chapter. I have parts 4 and 5 prepped and ready too, I just want to proof read them. Also, I have Gilwell 24 this weekend *boogies*, so will not be responding this weekend, due to the fact that I will be either: up a climbing wall, scuba-diving, eating, sleeping or being sleep-deprived. Cheers. XD_


	4. Part IV: Sherlock Holmes

**Part IV: Sherlock Holmes**

I had never been sent a lackey before. When he arrived, saying he had a message for me, I was instantly suspicious. If you are going to be court-martialled, then either you get told by your higher-up (and Lestrade hadn't mentioned anything), or you just get dragged away to a prison cell.

So I stood and waited while he caught his breath, noting the white band with a black feather stamped on it. A C.O.; a conchie. Some people called them 'cows', short for 'cowards', but I never did.

"Message?" I said, when he had stopped hyperventilating.

"Commanders office, immediately." He said, and I was led there.

People _never_ go to the Commander, unless it's to receive a medal, or it's for serious, serious misconduct. My stomach was misbehaving rather badly. I had to stop for a moment outside the Commander's office to catch a breath. That's when I noticed that there were four guards there, outside the office and suddenly I was on high alert. There were _never_ four guards, only two. Why would there be four guards? Unless two of them planned to drag me away, and the other two remained, guarding the office as normal. But it didn't seem like that. One scanned my wristlet and let me in and when I turned around, the conchie was gone.

The Commander sat at his desk and opposite in a standard military issue painful-on-the-arse-and-back chair sat a man. Flanked by two guards. But it wasn't the guards that were extraordinary; it was the man.

He wore a pilot's Wingforce uniform, burnt and a little tattered looking with a rip in one sleeve. Of the **other** side. The purple edging and the fancy flourishes on it were clear. I gaped at him.

Moving on.

He had one arm in a sling. The angle it was at, and the slight tightness in his face suggested broken, but no meds given. There was a small gash above his eyebrow too, bleeding freely. His face was the most extraordinary, about on par with his uniform. Angular, narrow, aristocratic. Quicksilver eyes and black curls. His expression: bored.

He stared straight at me, then did a sweeping up and down gaze, then looked away again, still bored.

"Watson, isn't it? John Watson?"

I hastily turned back to the Commander. "Yes sir." I said and stood at parade rest, hands behind my back, facing him.

"I have a job for you, Watson."

"Yes sir."

"I need you to look after this man," he gestured at Bored. "Show him the ropes. He has low level clearance, don't take him anywhere he is not allowed." Translation: _show him anything worth more than peanuts and you're dead_. "You will be released from this duty when I say so." _Fine, suit yourself._ "He will be bunked on Level 12, Corridor B, Room 2. Pick him at nine hundred hours; drop him off at the room at twenty one hundred hours. Feed him, show him around. He will be delivered new clothes tomorrow. Why he is here is classified."

The complete translation was: _you're still hung out on the line, so we're having you nurse-maid what seems to be a V.I.P. whistle-blower. Feed him, entertain him, and drop him off at the lock-up at the correct times, where he bunks between those sentenced to death for high treason, and those locked up for their own good_.

"Clear Watson?"

"Perfectly sir."

"Here," the commander said, and handed me a Taser with a nod. "He'll have to get that arm checked out, and his name is Sherlock Holmes. I don't want him consorting with the others, so you will have to treat him."

"Yes sir. Thank you sir."

"Dismissed."

And Sherlock Holmes followed me out the door.

"A captain," he said, when we had left the Commander's office behind us, and were making out way towards the infirmary. His voice was a long slow aristocratic drawl.

"Yes," I said, walking fast. The corridor was empty at the moment, but soon we would encounter more people, and the staring and the silence would be painful.

"Standards must be slipping," he said.

"Be quiet please," I tried to say it calmly, but I think my voice faltered slightly.

"What did you do?" He demanded. "You must have done something wrong, or they wouldn't have you look after me."

"Be quiet." We had stopped now, in the middle of the corridor.

"Did you neglect your duties as captain? Dereliction of duty, was it?"

I bundled him up against the wall, and he just stared at me; the only sound was my own harsh breathing. "You need to be quiet," I told him.

His face was calm, impassive. "Did someone die on your watch, _captain_?"

So I socked him.

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

_During periods of conscription (when there were wars), C.O. (conscientious objectors) were often mis-treated, scorned – in WWI some were imprisoned or sentenced to death. Traditionally, a white feather was a symbol of cowardice. __I do not think that C.O.s are cowards__, but my point is this – in __this __war, the conchies (and it's not a derogatory term, I'm pretty sure) were scorned and mis-treated, and having them wear a band with a white feather on it is an under-hand way of making fun of them. _

_If there was conscription, I would be a C.O._

_Sherlock's face is bleeding because according to the many adventure books I read, scalp wounds bleed a lot. I also broke his arm too. Sorry. _

_Yes – for those who noticed it, Golf Echo Romeo Tango India (GERTI) is the call-sign for the only airplane of MJN Air, which is the main setting for Cabin Pressure, a radio drama with Benedict Cumberbatch in it. Congrats to those who spotted it. _


End file.
